HSBC Champions Has Been Promoted To a WGC Event......Kind Of

After just four years running, the HSBC Champions, which is played in Shanghai, China, has been promoted to a World Golf Championship event...well, kind of.

Scheduled to take place on Nov. 5-8, the HSBC Champions is now officially the fourth WGC event of the year; even if only in the name.

If it doesn’t look like a WGC, doesn’t act like a WGC, and doesn’t walk like a WGC, then it must not be a WGC, right?

Well, not necessarily.

In one of the most baffling decisions ever made by the International Federation of PGA Tours, the HSBC was promoted to a WGC event.

Yet the tournament will not use the World Golf Rankings to determine the 78-man field, will not carry the customary two-year PGA Tour exemption and Masters invitation for the winner, and any earnings will not be recognized by the PGA Tour.

Going one step further into absurdity, the winner of the HSBC Champions will be given entry into the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Maui, which is a winners-only event on the PGA Tour, yet no other perk normally accorded to the winner of a WGC event will be recognized by the PGA Tour.

What??

"So it's a WGC with an asterisk," Geoff Ogilvy suggested.

"If it's not going to have the same field as the rest of them, it's not really a world event, is it?" said Robert Allenby of the newly named WGC event.

Now that the HSBC Champions has been made a WGC event, it can no longer hand out those massive appearance fees that standard European and Asian Tour events are able to pay for players to show up.

"Tiger and Phil [Mickelson] used to go play it because they got a $2 million appearance fee, and we won't see that anymore. I think that might change some guys' minds to go,” said Reteif Goosen.

There is no question that legitimizing Asia’s biggest and most popular tournament by giving it a WGC tag will go a very long way in growing the game of golf in China and the entire Far East region of the world.

Anything that contributes to a growth in golf’s worldwide popularity, whether that be making golf an Olympic event, or moving some WGC events outside of America, is ultimately good for the game.

However, the fact that the HSBC Champions has been named a WGC Event, yet it has not been given the same weight and prestige as the other WGC events, is more or less a slap in the face to the tournament and the region.

The International Federation of PGA Tours is essentially saying—“ok, we’ll give you a WGC tag to put in your tournament name and help grow the game in your region, but we are not ready to give you a real WGC event yet."

Now, the argument against the PGA Tour recognizing any earnings at the HSBC Champions is that the event takes place in the second to last week of the PGA Tour’s fall series, where many players are viciously battling it out to get inside of the top-125 on the tour’s money list in order to retain their playing privileges for the following year.

This is definitely a very legitimate argument; after all, there are many more players on the PGA Tour, other than those near the top of the World Golf rankings, whose interests also need to be respected.

But, the obvious solution would have been to move the dates of the HSBC Championship so that it does not coincide with the final weeks of the PGA Tour’s fall series or other long-standing, prestigious events on any of the other professional golf tours.

There is an old saying that goes “If you’re going to do something, do it right, or don’t do it at all."

Perhaps the International Federation of PGA Tours should have taken this into account before deciding to name the HSBC Champions a WGC event, yet deny the tournament many of the privileges currently given to all other WGC events.